Item #248555 Autograph Letter, signed (“Claud I. Boswell, Sheriff of Fife”), to First Viscount Melville Hanry Dundas. Claude Irvine Boswell, Lord Bamuto.

Autograph Letter, signed (“Claud I. Boswell, Sheriff of Fife”), to First Viscount Melville Hanry Dundas.

County Fife, Scotland: November 2, 1795.

Price: $450.00


About the item

2 1/2 pp. pen and ink on a folded sheet. 4to (10 x 15 3/4 inches; 250 x 400 mm. across the fold). Unusual fold lines. In custom cloth chemise.

Item #248555

[With:]

HORSBRUGH, Thomas, Deputy sheriff clerk. Autograph Letter, signed (“Thos. Horsbrugh”), to Claud I Boswell. Cupar, Scotland: 24 October 1795. 4to (10 x 15 3/4 inches; 250 x 400 mm. across the fold). 3 1/4 pp. Usual fold lines. A very good copy.

Torrential rains in the autumn of 1795 decimated cereal crops in the southwest of Scotland. This letter from then Sheriff of Fife Claud Irvine Boswell is an appeal for assistance sent to first Viscount Melville Henry Dundas (1742-1811). Boswell indicates as an enclosure a letter from Thomas Horsbrugh in which the deputy sheriff clerk assesses the extent of the damages in nearby Cupar.

Written in clear and legible late-eighteenth-century cursive hands, these are interesting historical artifacts that document Boswell's extraordinary concern for public welfare: “I presume you will consider the account of the crop in this country as important from the consequences that may result therefrom if some remedy is not provided. It is not the Farmer who suffers the most from the badness of the Crop but the great body of the people the labouring poor.”.